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By Dorothy Brotherton
BECOMING PREGNANT isn’t always a joy. Every
woman since time began has probably dealt with this question: What if I
become pregnant under the wrong circumstances?
Concern for women in crisis pregnancies weighed heavily
on Theresa White’s heart for many years. In 1997, she was
instrumental in launching the Christian Association of Pregnancy Support
Services across Canada, which now has 64 centres nation-wide. The group
decided to go beyond protesting abortion, and offer care for women who
choose to go through with crisis pregnancies.
 | Pro-life activist Theresa White with her group's logo |
When an opportunity came up a few years ago to
establish a centre in her home town of Kelowna, White gave up the chief
executive position of the national group to get hands-on experience. She
wanted to work directly with women in her own community.
So White became the first director of the Okanagan
Valley Pregnancy Care Centre (OVPCC). She has done everything from painting
office walls to counselling distraught women, defusing angry parents to
hosting fundraising banquets, calling for desperate prayers to
brainstorming the future.
Pregnant women whose situations are complicated by
school or career pressures, family tension, broken relationships, financial
or health concerns come to the centre to talk – sometimes
tentatively, sometimes defensively, sometimes as a last resort.
The centre now receives referrals from doctors, as well
as word of mouth and online exposure. Advertising posters have been placed
on city buses for the free service. A young woman who came recently to the
centre told White: “I saw it on the bus – that’s how I
knew about it. I stayed on the bus and came to you.”
The women are offered, first and always, nonjudgmental
acceptance. They are offered a pregnancy test if needed, help in telling
parents, education on what pregnancy is all about, referrals for support
services in the community and even baby layettes.
Full information and options are explained to the
mothers, including adoption, parenting, abortion and post-abortion
recovery. The staff does not refer anyone for an abortion. Is the centre
working out the way White had envisioned it?
“We’re at the point where we’re
meeting our original goal, to be here for unsupported women facing crisis
pregnancy. The most urgent needs are being met. We’ve already served
more women this year than all last year,” she said, speaking in late
August. “The moms are loving their children to life. Now we’re
beginning to envision deeper needs.”
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White dreams of establishing partnerships with churches
to help meet the practical needs of women and their babies.
“They are courageously choosing life. But we need
good living situations. We’re thinking of challenging the churches to
engage with this need. Maybe some people can open their homes with suites.
It’s a life-changing ministry. It impacts generations,” said
White.
She and her board are considering a residential program
to help women and their partners, when they are willing to be involved,
learn life skills and parenting skills
White speaks of the ministry with gratitude and a touch
of awe – although it weighs heavily, especially when someone
hears all the facts and chooses not to bring a child to birth.
But White says, “We get them walking through our
doors daily, broken. We get to experience the wonderful grace of God
touching their lives. We hear [them say]: ‘Nobody told me I had
options. Nobody told me I could cry.’”
White and several other OVPCC members have attended
training sessions in England, leaning to provide online care. They will
train the other centres in Canada to provide this service, hoping it will
reach places where no care centre exists.
OVPCC is supported by local churches, and partners with
local support agencies.
Contact: www.ovpcc.com.
October 2008
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